


Knight

by LeDiz



Series: The 48: StH 2020 [8]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Attempted Murder, But we're all trying, Dubious Medical Science, Gen, Heroes make for difficult children, Seriously I know nothing about biology, Sonic discovering his morals, Tom and Maddie struggle to be parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23551303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: It's ten o'clock on a Thursday night, and Sonic hasn't come home yet. It's not cause to worry until a report comes into the station about an outsider attacking one of the local kids.Tom and Maddie have a lot more to worry about than whether they can ground their alien son.
Series: The 48: StH 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641913
Comments: 34
Kudos: 250





	1. Murder

They’d never actually made it official, or talked about it with him, but Tom and Maddie had agreed with each other that they’d adopted Sonic. Super speedy blue ‘hedgehog’ he may have been, but Sonic was now also their son, whether he liked it or not.

Thankfully, the ‘or not’ hadn’t really come up. Sonic welcomed their care and affection with less complaints than a real kid would have, and generally abided by whatever rules they set. But since they’d never explicitly told Sonic he was now their son (like it or not), sometimes there were moments he didn’t act like their child, and they had no one to blame but themselves.

Like now. At ten o’clock at night on a Thursday. When they were impatiently standing in the kitchen, watching the clock tick onwards. Sonic’s dinner was slowly going cold in the oven. There had been no call. No note. No Sonic.

They’d talked about ‘school nights’ and sleep, but never in a prescriptive sort of way. Sonic _liked_ sleep, so he almost always went to bed before they did – or at least fell asleep on the couch before either of them could tell him it was getting late. So he didn’t, strictly, have a curfew per se.

“I’m grounding him,” Tom decided, and Maddie smiled.

“I give you two days before giving in and letting him out.”

“Nope. I’m gonna stand firm this time,” he said firmly. “He’s grounded.”

They were expecting Sonic to walk in the door, maybe a little quieter than usual because of the late hour, so they were both a little too focussed on listening to the noises outside. That meant that when Tom’s phone went off they both jumped like it had been an alarm bell, Maddie even snatching her chest in shock. Laughing at his own overreaction, Tom fished his phone from his pocket to check the caller ID.

“It’s Wade. Probably got a nasty email from someone,” he said, before picking up. “Hey Wade. Night shift running smooth?”

“ _Not exactly. Sorry to call so late, Tom, but we’ve got a situation down here,_ ” Wade reported. He sounded strangely professional. “ _Mrs Louise Thompson has made a report. I think you better come in._ ”

He blinked, glancing at Maddie to tell her it was more serious than expected. “Sure thing. I’ll be right there.” He paused as he turned off the phone, frowning at it. “I have to go in. Sorry to head out late.”

“No, go,” she said, brows furrowing. “I’ll wait for Sonic. I’ll send you a message when he gets in.”

It wasn’t until he was driving that Tom realised the two late night problems could be related. This was Green Hills, after all – Sonic was the first and only really exciting thing to have happened there in all the time Tom had been alive. But it wasn’t likely. Louise Thompson was a regular at the station, usually filing complaints about her neighbours not trimming their garden properly. While it was unusual for Wade to call him in for one of them, a late night rampage from her wasn’t exactly unheard of. Usually it involved blackberry bushes.

Somehow, that made what he saw when he walked in the door even worse.

Joey Thompson was sitting in the waiting area, his feet up on the chair and arms wrapped over them. His face was streaked with dirt and tears. When he looked up, visibly frightened by the door even opening, Tom could see his neck, and the nasty red marks all around his throat.

“Shit,” he breathed, and quickly shut the door behind himself.

Joey was Louise’s kid. He was maybe thirteen – just verging on that point where his body would either shoot up into tall and lanky now or ruin his self-confidence by waiting another five years. Tom mostly knew him because Sonic had declared him the master of soccer and therefore one of his all-time best friends.

Sonic had mentioned a plan to attend soccer practice today.

“Sheriff,” Louise greeted him as she rushed out of the main room, Wade close behind. “You’re here! Did you get him?”

“Him?” he repeated, slowly moving away from the door and trying to remember his crisis training. Was he supposed to get down on Joey’s level or stay standing? What was he supposed to do with his hands?

“That psychopath! Where is he? I hope you didn’t bring him here!”

“Mom,” Joey said softly. His voice sounded hoarse with just that one word.

Louise looked at him for a moment before staring up at Tom. “Well? Say something, sheriff!”

“Mrs Thompson,” Wade interjected as he stepped up between them, “I’m not sure Tom knows what’s going on here yet.”

“What? Why wouldn’t he know? Why wouldn’t you know?” she demanded, while Tom noticed Joey’s eyes widening fearfully.

“Wh- Mom,” he said again, more urgently this time. “Mom, what if – what if he –”

She looked around again, pursed her lips, and then rushed over to sit on the chair beside him, her arms around his shoulders. “I’m sure he’s fine, honey. I’m sure the sheriff is just being professional. Perhaps too professional, given the circumstances. This is all – it’s all fine. Everything’s fine. Right, sheriff?”

He blinked, then raised his eyebrows at Wade, who winced and shifted his weight, awkwardly fiddling with his belt.

“Ah… yeah, uh. We’ve had some trouble tonight, Tom,” he explained. “Joey here had a run in with an out-of-towner. Sonic got involved, so Joey and Mrs Thompson thought you might already know.”

Tom swallowed and tried his hardest to look even slightly in control of the situation. “Right. Well. It’s important we get all the details. This sort of situation needs multiple perspectives. No bias. So why don’t we start at the beginning?” he asked, and then turned to Louise and Joey, gesturing for his office. “Let’s go sit down and talk about this. Joey, you okay to walk?”

“He ran all the way to town,” Louise snapped. “He ran over five miles and you’re asking if he can _walk_?”

“Mom,” Joey said again, and she immediately flinched back before curling around him again.

“It’s okay, honey. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Are you okay to talk to the sheriff? Do you want to talk to Sheriff Tom?”

“Y- I – I’m okay, I just…” He peeked up at Tom. “Did Sonic get home okay?”

He hid his clenched fists by setting them on his waist. “Let’s not worry about Sonic right now. Come on, my office has nicer chairs than this.”

* * *

It started after soccer practice.

Like most of the sports teams, Sonic hadn’t really ‘joined’ the soccer team, since it wouldn’t have been fair and he wouldn’t have been able to play in any matches anyway. But he always went to practices, helped out, did drills and played friendly matches. Today, Joey’s dad had been late to pick him up (again), so as the sun set it was just Sonic and Joey, messing around on the field and chatting while they waited to see if the deadbeat would actually show.

That was when the car pulled into the parking lot.

It wasn’t familiar, so Sonic had hidden in the trees that lined the far side of the pitch, leaving Joey alone as an equally unfamiliar teenager got out and started walking over.

Unfamiliar teenagers were strange in Green Hills. They weren’t exactly a tourist destination. But even now that he knew better, Joey’s description of him still sounded harmless. He was tall but kind of skinny, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Pretty pale. As descriptions went, it wasn’t great, but the fact he’d been wearing a Hill Top letter jacket would certainly help when they went looking for him. He said his name was Rob, and he was the son of one of Joey’s dad’s friends.

Joe Thompson senior had a habit of getting drunk in the Hill Top bar, where his wife couldn’t easily track him down. It was usually the reason he forgot to pick Joey up from practice. So the only unusual thing about Rob’s story was that Joe Snr had realised he should have picked up his son and asked his friend to send _his_ son to give the kid a ride home.

Normally, Joey just got bored of waiting and walked. But a ride was always welcome, so…

“He didn’t seem like a bad guy,” Joey insisted. “He wasn’t that much older than me. I – I – I didn’t think it’d be a big deal.”

Green Hills was a safe town. Tom couldn’t blame the kid.

But then, Rob missed the turn for the suburbs. Joey got nervous when they turned onto the highway out of town.

And then Rob pulled a gun out from under the car seat, and told him to quit talking.

Joey didn’t know where they were when they stopped. ‘Some field’, he said, only to realise how important it was to know where he’d been taken and start to panic because he couldn’t be more specific. But Louise and Tom joined forces to calm him down. They’d work it out later. He nodded a little too fast and explained how Rob had ordered him to walk out into the long grass until they couldn’t see the road anymore.

Once they were far enough, Rob put the gun in his waistband so he could hold Joey’s head in both hands. He kept touching Joey’s hair and face, and told him what a good kid he looked like.

“I dunno what he was doing, he just kept staring at me,” Joey stammered. “He had this really weird look. It was like – like – I don’t – I don’t know, I just – I was so scared, he had the gun and I – I didn’t – I didn’t know what to do.”

Eventually, Rob had wrapped his hands around Joey’s neck and started squeezing.

“I tried to get him off. I tried to make him stop, but I… I – I couldn’t… he – he was strong, and I… I just… I couldn’t b-breathe, and –”

And that was when Sonic had appeared out of nowhere, bowling them both right off their feet.

For the life of him, Tom couldn’t quite imagine it. Despite what he’d done to Robotnik’s ship-thing, Tom knew Sonic didn’t have a lot of strength behind him. He needed a lot of momentum to cause actual damage, and Tom sincerely doubted he would have done the flying cannonball trick against a human kid.

Maybe that was why things went badly. Joey didn’t explain it very well, but it sounded like Sonic just barrelled into Rob’s side at a run. Once both he and Joey had recovered enough to look up, he’d done what everyone did when they saw Sonic for the first time: screamed and reached for the nearest weapon to hand.

Sonic hadn’t been paying attention. He was too busy trying to get Joey to stand up and run.

“But I couldn’t – everything was kinda grey, I couldn’t – he – he grabbed my hand and he was pulling but – he’s s- he’s small, I just fell over, and – and then there was this b-bang, and – It was so _loud_.”

The bullet hadn’t hit Joey, and he didn’t know whether it hit Sonic. He didn’t think so, because Sonic just kept pushing him to get up and run.

“He said I needed to go. Get out of there. He told me to run. He – he had my hand, and w-we were running, and – but then there was – another shot and – I mean, I didn’t see anything, but s- Sonic l-let g-go and said I n-needed to k-keep g-g-going, and –”

And so Joey had run. He’d run until he couldn’t run anymore, bashing his way through the fields, and then staggered as best he could. He’d hurried as fast as he could all the way back home, to his quickly sobering father and furious mother.

Rob hadn’t followed, but… neither had Sonic.

“But he’s okay, right?” Joey begged him. “He made it back? He t-took care of that guy and he went home, right?”

Tom looked at him, then up at a Louise, and then down at his notepad. He silently nodded and kept writing.

* * *

Tom finished taking Joey’s statement and then had Wade drive the Thompsons home. He called it in to the regional office, unlocked the weapons safe, called Maddie and told her the short version so she’d get ready for anything, and then drove out to the highway.

Thankfully—unbelievably—it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

The car was still parked on the edge of the road, passenger side back door open. It was definitely a teenager’s car. The sort of cheap older model that every proud kid bought with money they’d scraped together from crappy jobs and bad loans. It was immaculately cleaned.

Tom snapped on a pair of gloves, but didn’t even need to touch anything before he saw what he needed. There was a shotgun on the backseat, half uncovered from the blanket it had obviously been wrapped in.

He quietly unloaded it and bagged the bullets before he hefted his own pistol, hooked his service torch over his wrist, and headed down into the field. He was only a sheriff of a small country town, but he’d been trained for this. He was as prepared as anyone could be.

The night was silent, only the soft sounds of the wind blowing through the grass. It was too high to see through, and there was no path until he almost literally stumbled over a clot of tangled grass. It was huge and messy, easily six feet by three, with a conspicuous trail heading away. His throat instinctively closed as the torchlight fell over a splatter of something dark, but he forced himself not to focus on it, instead moving around the area to follow the trail without interfering.

There was another clump of bent and broken grass a few dozen yards away, along with another dark splatter and two separate trails. One of them arched back toward the road, while the other…

He found ‘Rob’ less three yards down the second trail, his head bloody and on a slightly awkward angle. Tom wasn’t entirely sure how to feel when he saw the steady rise and fall of his chest, or felt the strong beat of a heart in his pulse. Looked like the son of a bitch just had a bad head wound.

The gun Joey had mentioned was a revolver, and it was still lying by his hand. Tom picked it up as he activated his radio to call for an ambulance, awkwardly opening the chamber one-handed to check the rounds. Three bullets gone. Not necessarily three shot, but three gone. Once he had confirmation on the bus, he unloaded the rest and bagged everything before looking up and around again.

There was blood in all directions, so it was unlikely to have all come from the bastard’s head wound. But there were no more trails to follow. And even if there was…

He was a sheriff. He needed to stay with the perp until custody had been handed off.

“If you’ve hurt him, I swear to god,” he whispered, and then raised his voice. “Sonic? You out there?”

Nothing.

“Sonic, it’s me. Just me. You’re not in trouble, it’s safe. You can come out.”

Stillness.

“Sonic! If you can hear me, call out! Come on!”

Soccer practice finished at six, and the whole situation could have easily been over by seven. That was almost five hours ago now. Blood didn’t mean anything. Sonic could be miles away by now.

“Please be okay,” he breathed.

Only silence answered.

* * *

It was past two in the morning before he got out of the hospital. The bastard had cracked ribs from some kind of blunt-force trauma, some broken teeth from what Tom personally suspected was a heel to the jaw, and had cracked his head on the ground when he fell. The doctors weren’t sure when he would wake up.

But Tom had found some real identification on him – his name was Adam, a junior at Hill Top High. They’d contacted his parents, and unsurprisingly they were both horrified. They said he was a nice boy who kept to himself and never caused any trouble. They insisted there had to be some kind of mistake.

Tom had asked them to look at the guns he’d found, and they’d confirmed they belonged to the family. The revolver was a family heirloom from the second world war, and the shotgun was a hunting rifle that had never actually been used. They confirmed the license plate. Adam’s mother was a waitress at the bar Joe Snr frequented, and Adam had been known to drive drunk patrons home before. It was a pocket money job.

Adam, they kept saying, would never hurt anyone.

The detectives from the city had come in around one, and Tom had never been so happy to hand off a case. He wasn’t equipped for attempted homicide, let alone when they victim was one of his kid’s friends.

“Anything special we should know?” the senior asked, and Tom paused to consider.

He could already guess that the government would step in. They’d been watching Green Hills for months. Even if Joey managed to keep quiet about Sonic, they’d assume he was involved.

“There was no sign of the witness that intervened beyond blood splatter. They were long gone by the time I got there. But I’ll be going out for another look in the morning.”

“Yeah… you know, we appreciate local law enforcement helping out, but –”

“Hey, no, this is all yours,” he said, holding up both hands in immediate surrender. “I just don’t like the idea of one of my people hurt and wandering the woods. I’ll stay away from the crime scene and let you know if I find anyone.”

“Oh.” They stared at him. “Well then. Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”

Maddie was waiting for him in the carpark when he left the hospital, her arms folded tight around herself. “Anything?”

“No. He didn’t come home?”

She shook her head, lips pressed tight together. “I’m worried, Tom.”

He hesitated, taking her by the shoulders as they walked back to the car. “I’m sure he’s fine. I mean… kid survived two point-blank explosions in less than twelve hours. What’s a gunshot wound compared to that?”

They went back to the highway, but there was a crime scene unit on site so they couldn’t do much except collect Tom’s car and head home. Sonic still wasn’t there, and they ended up back in the kitchen, standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island and staring at each other.

“He wasn’t bleeding after the explosion,” Maddie said softly. “Not even a scratch on him.”

“Joey wasn’t bleeding either,” Tom said, assuming that she was trying to say the blood couldn’t have been Sonic’s. “And there was too much for it to have just been one head wound.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I mean that this is a different injury. Sonic moves so fast that his whole body _has_ to be built to deal with what would be lethal force on a human. Otherwise his daily jogs would be enough to knock him out. But these are open wounds. Blood letting. He’s tiny, Tom. His pulse is insanely fast. The amount of fluid he could have lost by now is…”

He couldn’t comfort her, because she knew a lot better than he did. He just took a deep breath and tried to think. “It was close enough to town that it would still be his woods. He wouldn’t be lost. So he’s gone somewhere. He didn’t come here. Where else would he go?”

“Maybe… maybe to check on his friend?” she suggested, and he looked up again, realising she was right. They immediately rushed back to the car.

They didn’t find Sonic. Just Joe Snr on the front porch, sobbing his heart out over what could have happened, but he pulled it together enough to confirm Sonic hadn’t been by.

“When you do see him, though… tell him thanks. I – I don’t know what I would’ve done if… I swear I’ll never go to that damn bar again! I swear it!”

Once they managed to extricate themselves from that, they sat in the car on the side of the road, staring at nothing. He had to be fine. He’d survived ten years on his own when he was too young to take care of himself. He was faster than sound. He could outmanoeuvre heat-seeking missiles. He’d survived two explosions. He was Sonic the Hedgehog. He had to be fine.

“Maybe he went to the cave,” Maddie said out of nowhere, and Tom turned his head just enough to look at her doubtfully.

“Why would he do that?” he asked. “There’s nothing there anymore.”

“He’s hurt, he saw one of his friends abducted and nearly throttled, he’s lost a lot of blood, he’s probably not thinking very clearly, and I am trying to be _constructive_ , Tom,” she snapped, and he turned back to the wheel, already restarting the engine.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said.

And, amazingly, she really was.

Without all his junk in it, the cave seemed smaller, but Sonic was still hard to spot, curled up in the darkest, furthest corner. He flinched away from the torch light.

“Sonic! There you are, thank god,” Tom gasped as he scrambled down the hole. “You had us worried sick! What are you doing here?”

Sonic didn’t answer, but he didn’t move either, just watching as Tom stumbled across the uneven ground to reach him. He stayed perfectly, worryingly still, only even flinching again when Tom slid to his knees beside him.

“Don’t touch him,” Maddie ordered as she hurried after him. “Let me see first.”

Honestly, she wouldn’t have needed to tell him – even in the bad light of the torch, Tom could see enough that he was terrified of making it worse. Sonic’s entire right side was stained and wet, his limited clothes all dyed a horrible rusty brown from drying blood. He’d taken off one of his gloves, revealing his bare right hand for the first time Tom had ever seen, to use it as a makeshift bandage around his leg, while the left hand was pressed tight against his side to cover what had to be a second wound.

“Oh, Sonic,” Maddie breathed as she absent-mindedly yanked her kit open and started pawing through it for gauze. “Sonic, honey, oh, Sonic. Why didn’t you come home? Here, Tom, I need more light, hold that torch higher. Sonic, I need you to move your hand for me, I need to see.”

But he just shook his head, pulling a little further away from her. “Mm-mm.”

“Sonic,” she said again, more firmly. “ _Please_.”

He hesitated, his blinking slower than they’d ever seen, but making another, vaguer noise and gradually uncurling his arms. It looked like a horrible bloody mess to Tom, but after Maddie had stared at it for a few seconds she let out a soft breath and nodded.

“Okay. Okay, thank you honey. I’m gonna give you some gauze and I want you to press on it, okay? Just like you were doing before, okay?”

“B’fore?” he mumbled, and she nodded, taking his hand so that when she had pressed the gauze down she could guide him back to it.

“Like that, okay? Nice and tight. I’m going to check your leg now. Remember not to kick.”

“Nn,” he grunted. “N’kickin’. I uh… sorry, I…”

“Shh, it’s okay, you don’t have to talk, it’s okay,” she said, reaching up redirect Tom’s arm to shine the light on Sonic’s leg. Her fingertips left little red splotches on his wrist.

“Mm-mm,” It wasn’t entirely clear whether he was moaning because Maddie was removing his temporary bandage or something else, but he sounded insistent as he tried to talk. “M’s’ry… I di’n me’n… shouldn’t’ve… I di’n m’n…”

“Okay,” Maddie said again, but her breath was a little sharper this time, and her movements gained speed as she retied his glove and snatched the torch from Tom’s hand. “Okay, we’re gonna go now, okay? I’ve got a blanket here and we’re gonna wrap you up, okay? Then Tom’s gonna pick you up, and we’re gonna go. We’re gonna go to my clinic.”

“Maddie,” Tom tried to say, but she was shoving a blanket at him without looking, focussed on her kit.

“Right now. We’re going to my clinic right now. Tom, move.”

And that… was a little too terrifying to ignore.


	2. Run to me

“It was a graze to start with, I think,” Maddie explained quietly as they drove through the dark streets. “Both of them. The side looks bad, but I think it’ll be okay once I can stitch it up. He’s lost a lot of blood, and I think he went pretty close to shock.”

Tom had Sonic wrapped in a blanket on his lap. Quills kept poking through to prick his arm and shoulder, but he was a little more concerned by how Sonic’s eyes seemed almost glazed, unable to focus on a single point. He glanced up at her warily. “But…? I feel like you’re worried about something else.”

“You mean aside from the blood loss? That’s plenty to worry about.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “The one of his leg _started_ as a graze. He kept moving it, Tom. He kept running, he kept moving, he has _damaged_ that wound.”

When Tom was in high school, one of his friends had fractured his collarbone and somehow not noticed until after a week and two football games. To this day, it still bothered him when it got cold. “Are you saying you can’t fix his leg?”

She didn’t immediately answer, licking her lips instead. Eventually, she said, “He should’ve come home. Why didn’t he come home?”

He shook his head. He really didn’t know.

* * *

Maddie had seemed sure of herself on the way there, but as soon as Sonic was down on the operating table and she’d cleaned off most of the blood and dirt, she started muttering to herself for not thinking. She didn’t know how much anaesthetic Sonic could take on a good day, let alone under the circumstances. She didn’t know how he would react to the fluids he so clearly needed. He wasn’t really an animal, so her medication wouldn’t suit him, she couldn’t give him a transfusion even though it was definitely what he needed most, and she had no idea whether bare-back surgery would be the thing to push him over the edge, or…

“Maddie,” Tom said, pulling her back from the panic. “You’ve got this. You’ll work it out, I know you will.”

She took a deep breath and nodded once before getting to work. She started with the leg because it scared her more.

Even putting aside his foreign physiology, the surgery was harder than it needed to be. Every so often, it was almost like Sonic’s body realised it was time to start healing and tried to overtake her. Twice she had to stop her process and focus on a different part of the wound, just to stop the flesh and muscle from trying to knit back together in the wrong ways. It was enough that she quickly decided she was glad she hadn’t bothered with a drip or anaesthetic, because she half-suspected his body would have tried to heal around the needle. Instead, she sent Tom to the 24-hour store in search of Gatorade. She knew he could drink that and the electrolytes would help.

Getting Sonic to swallow the liquid when he was barely conscious and full-body tensed from the pain was easier said than done, but they managed. He kept down enough that she stopped worrying about dehydration, at any rate.

“I think he’ll be okay,” she said as she finished bandaging his side. “The hard part will be keeping him off that leg once he wakes up properly.”

“Any idea when that’ll be?” Tom asked. Sonic was grumbling quietly but not particularly coherently, and even when he drank it was more because Tom was pouring the liquid into his mouth than because he really knew what was happening. He wasn’t back with them yet.

“Who knows? I’m still amazed he didn’t go into shock,” she admitted. “Right now, I’m more worried about infection. I did my best to sterilise everything, but… he was out there for so long, and –”

“You did what you could.” Tom nudged her with his hip, the most reassurance he could give with his arms full of particularly spiky hedgehog. “It was good work, Doctor Wachowski.”

She tried to smile back, but neither of them felt very confident.

* * *

Sonic fell asleep—properly asleep—on the car ride home, this time curled up under Maddie’s arm in the backseat. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off and the sun was creeping over the horizon, both Tom and Maddie were feeling the sleepless night drag at them. Worse for Tom was knowing that he had to go into work just in case the detectives wanted him.

No. More than that. He had to be ready in case the bastard child-killer woke up and remembered an alien hedgehog giving him a well-deserved ass kicking.

While Maddie had a shower and found fresh clothes, Tom made Sonic a little nest in the armchair and wrapped him up in it. It probably wasn’t the best idea, since the living room was so close to the front door, but he didn’t want Sonic trying to go up and down the stairs when he inevitably woke up and got bored.

Because that would happen. It had to happen. Sonic would be fine once he woke up.

Tom sighed, curving his hand down the side of one of those long clumps of quills. “You can’t be doing this stuff to me, buddy,” he said softly. “My heart’s not gonna take it.”

Not even Sonic’s ear flickered in response. So Tom could only sigh again and crawl over to the couch. He took his phone out, set a vibration alarm on his watch for two hours, and let himself drop into unconsciousness. When he forced himself to get up and head back into the office, Maddie only waited long enough to kiss him goodbye before passing out in his place.

But even as he drove in, collected a coffee, and settled down behind his desk, one thing kept rolling through Tom’s head.

They’d found Sonic in his old cave.

Of all the places he could have gone, he’d gone to the cave. It wasn’t any closer to the highway than their home. In fact, it was a little further.

He’d been hurt and probably scared. So why hadn’t he come home?

“Wow, you look terrible.”

Tom jerked violently enough to upset his coffee and had to snatch at it, but it was only Wade, hovering in the doorway and looking concerned. Tom blinked at him as he tried to get his heartrate back down. “Wade. You’re on late shift this week. What’re you doing here?”

“I figured I should come in early, what with… y’know,” He paused, gesturing at nothing much. “How’d it go last night?”

“Uh… yeah,” he said, and explained the situation.

When he got to the end, Wade grimaced awkwardly and adjusted his belt a little higher on his hips. “Geez. This is so surreal. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in Green Hills. In the city, maybe, but people just aren’t like that out here.”

Tom didn’t have anything to say to that, so he didn’t bother answering. He picked up his coffee cup, making sure he hadn’t spilled anything over his desk, and then looked around, wishing he had some files or something to move. He felt restless. “Uh… so uh… we’ll have those detectives around for a while. We’ll need to be careful. I don’t think anyone will say anything, but –”

“No one’s gonna give him away, Tom,” he said immediately, and Tom looked up at him again. He nodded once. “Sonic’s _our_ alien. No creepy uncharismatic Men in Black are coming after him if Green Hills has anything to say about it.”

It wasn’t an uncommon thing for people around town to say. It hadn’t even seemed strange that first night when Robotnik almost killed the kid. But Tom had been stressed and scared for most of the night, running on adrenaline and panic. The reminder that his whole town cared about their mysterious little cryptid at least partly because Tom himself cared was… He closed his eyes, smiled, and nodded back, because that was all he could manage in response.

“But uh… seriously, Tom, you don’t look great,” Wade continued. “And if Sonic’s hurt, I mean… don’t you wanna be there?”

“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to move past the emotions. “But I _need_ to be here. And I need you on night shift. So do me a favour and go home, okay? Maybe check on the Thompsons on your way? Tell ’em we found Sonic and that he’ll be fine.”

“Yeah… sure thing, Tom. You take care of yourself though.”

He nodded again. Wade really was a good deputy.

* * *

It was almost eleven when Sonic’s eyes properly opened for the first time. Maddie hadn’t managed a lot of sleep and was staring blindly at daytime TV, so she didn’t immediately notice the change.

“Morning,” Sonic mumbled, and she jumped so hard the remote control fell off the arm of the couch.

“Sonic! Oh, Sonic, hi. Morning. You’re awake,” she stammered, all but falling off the couch as she rushed to kneel in front of the armchair instead. “Hey. How you doing, kiddo?”

“Mm,” he said vaguely, closing his eyes again for a moment before refocussing on her face. He barely opened his mouth as he asked, “I screwed up, huh?”

“Oh… No, honey. No, you didn’t screw up at all,” she said, reaching up to pet his ear and quills. “Everything’s fine. Everything’s okay. Nobody’s mad at you, I promise. It’s all okay.”

He gazed back at her quietly for a second before responding. “It doesn’t feel okay.”

“I know. You got hurt. We might try some pain killers a little later, okay? See how you go with them?”

He hummed again, then closed his eyes in a wider grimace and tried to shift before apparently giving up. He licked his lips and made a face, then asked, “Can I have some water?”

“Of course. Of course you can. One second, okay? Don’t move.”

As she should have expected, he had more than moved before she got back. He’d dragged himself up to a seated position and begun gingerly prodding at his bandages, but it had obviously been far too much pain and effort. He only noticed her kneeling back down him when she reached out to stop his poking, and it took him more than a couple of tries to focus on her face. His gaze wandered over it even once he had a grasp on where she was.

“Hey there. Still with me?” she asked, and he blinked like he couldn’t quite recognise her.

“Pretzel lady?”

“Mmhm. I’ve got your water here. Do you think you can drink for me?”

He tried, but even as she held out the bottle she knew he couldn’t quite get a solid grip on it. So she held it for him, just letting him guide her as she raised it enough for him to drink.

“I know it’s hard, but you need to try not to touch your bandages,” she said as he guided it back down again. “I don’t want you getting an infection.”

“Mm… d’n get sick,” he mumbled.

“Do me a favour and humour me? Just this once?”

“Hm,” He closed his eyes, and for a moment it almost looked like he’d fallen back asleep sitting up. But then his eyes reopened and he turned his eyes in her vague direction. “D’you guys find me?”

“That’s right. In your old cave, do you remember?”

He made another inscrutable noise, and she reached out to pet him again, running her fingers over his cheek and into his quills. “You were in pretty bad shape. We took you to my clinic to patch you up.”

He hesitated, and then took the obviously considerable effort to enunciate, “Thank you.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘you’re welcome’, so she just swallowed and kept petting him as best she could. “Your leg got hurt pretty bad. I want it to heal properly, so you need to stay off it as much as possible for a while, okay?”

His only response was another noise and to reach for the water bottle again. She helped him take another few sips, and was mildly gratified when he was able to focus on her face again afterward. He swallowed, his mouth working around the sounds before he managed to ask, “How’s Joe?”

“Joey? Your friend? He’s fine,” she said. “You were so brave to save him. Maybe we can call him later, what do you say?”

He lowered his eyes away from her and didn’t answer. Maddie paused, then pushed herself up to perch on the front of the armchair, taking his hands in hers. He immediately pulled one back, and then frowned at his bare fingers.

“M’gloves…?”

“You took one of them off last night,” she reminded him. “They were both pretty… They were pretty messy.”

He grumbled, closing his fist and looking around a little. “Where…”

“I put them in some bleach to soak,” she said. “I’ll go and get them when Tom gets home, and then I’ll give them a good wash. You can have them back tomorrow, okay?”

He grimaced but obviously couldn’t complain, just shifted the hand not in her grasp down under the blanket. She had to smile. “Your socks are the same, but you were due new ones anyway. I’ll buy you some when I go out tonight.”

“Ugh, m’barrassing,” he mumbled, but left it there. He started leaning into the back of the arm chair, only to wince when the movement caught his injuries and forced him to stop. He stiffened painfully, and then groaned and forced himself to straighten up. “Joe. S’Joe okay?”

She wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten asking or if he was just looking for more information, so she slowly reiterated what she’d already told him, “He’s fine. Just a little shaken up.” She paused, squeezing his hand gently. “Why don’t you lie back down? You need to rest.”

He shook his head, though his eyes had already closed again. “Joe’s g’d guy. Teachin’ me soccer.”

“Sonic?” she called softly, leaning down to try and see his face better. “Honey? Still with me?”

“Mm. Hope s’okay. S’good guy. Sh’n’ve… sh’d’ve… hm.” His head came up again, his eyes wide but unseeing. “Joe. Is Joe okay?”

And that was all the proof she needed that he wasn’t nearly as awake as he seemed. She reached out, half-picking him up just to force him to lie down again. He stiffened and hissed at the pain, but obviously had just enough presence of mind to keep his quills relatively slack. He still hissed through his teeth and struggled to keep breathing evenly as she wrapped him back up in the blanket. “Mm- hold – J-Joe…”

“Joey’s fine, honey. It’s time to take care of you, now. Go to sleep.”

“N’t s’posed to be here,” he mumbled, though his eyes were closed and his head had turned into the cushion. “D’n w’n… Tom. Trouble. All’s… s’trouble.”

“Tom’ll be home soon,” she promised, smoothing her hand over his quills. “Shh now. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

He made another noise of complaint or objection, but it was about all he could manage. In seconds, his breathing had evened back out and he was asleep all over again.

* * *

“ _How’s he doing?_ ”

Maddie grimaced, turning around to lean against the back of the couch. It was late afternoon and Tom was coming home early, but needed the phone conversation to stay alert on the road. “He’s sleeping. He woke up for a little while earlier, but he was pretty confused. He kept asking about Joey.”

“ _And his… I don’t know, his vitals? Is that what you check?_ ”

She chuckled despite herself. Bless the boy for trying. “You know I don’t know that. Let’s make a note to get a record of Sonic’s ‘normal’ at some point, but right now all I can tell you is that he’s sleeping. His breathing’s fine and he doesn’t feel any warmer than usual. If this morning was any indication, I imagine his body’s doing what it can to heal faster than we’d expect. I’m going to change his bandages next time he wakes up to check it out.”

“ _Okay, uh… Wade checked in with the Thompsons today. They’re doing okay. Joey wants to see Sonic. I don’t know what to tell him, I… I don’t know how he’ll take knowing Sonic got shot._ ” Tom paused with an annoyed grunt. “ _Not sure I know how_ I’m _taking it, to be honest._ ”

“No. It’s… something,” she agreed. “It’s definitely something. I mean, I’m proud he saved Joey, but…”

“ _Yeah. Yeah, that about sums it up._ ”

They both hesitated, and Maddie peeked over her shoulder at Sonic, only to flinch as she realised his eyes were open, gazing blindly at the coffee table. She stared at him for a second, not sure if he was really awake. “Ah… any um… any word from the detectives? Or that General?”

“ _The_ d _etectives came by,_ ” Tom reported. “ _Mostly just to get the Thompsons’ address and see how I went tracking down my ‘witness’. They’re pretty happy I’m staying out of it. Nothing from the feds, yet._ ”

“They might not talk to us this time. They seemed to like us just keeping quiet.”

“ _That’ll be the trick, won’t it? Everyone just staying quiet._ ”

She paused again, watching Sonic carefully. He still hadn’t moved, but she decided his face was too pinched for him to be sleep-staring. “How far off are you?”

“ _From home? Mm, maybe a couple minutes._ ”

“Okay. I think Sonic’s awake again, so I might let you risk the rest of the drive.”

“ _Oh._ _Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll be there are soon as I can._ ”

“Thanks. Love you.”

“ _Love you._ ”

She hung up and hurried to kneel back down in front of the chair. Thankfully, Sonic was able to immediately focus on her this time, and tried for a smile, but now she was close she was able to see he was shuddering, every muscle tense. It almost sounded like a cough when he greeted her, “Hey, Maddie.”

“Hey,” she said. “Is the pain really bad?”

“Me?” He made a noise that she suspected was supposed to be a cocky chuckle, but it came out more like a sob. “M’fine.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go get you some Tylenol. I’m not sure it’ll work, but we’ll give it a shot, okay?”

“S’painkiller?” he asked, and she nodded. He grimaced. “Mm-mm. No.”

“You don’t want any?”

“Mm-mm. D’n like ’em,” he said through gritted teeth. He paused, swallowing hard before he even tried to continue. “Um… what’m… Where’m… I was… cave.”

“You were in the cave, that’s right,” she said. “Tom and I found you and took you to the clinic. Do you remember me telling you? Do you remember us talking earlier?”

He grunted, lips pulling back as he tried to shift, but he didn’t get far before collapsing back into the cushions. She had to clench her fists to stop herself from running for her supplies. There wasn’t any point if he didn’t want to try it, and Tom had said he’d taken a full bear tranquiliser to the knee and woken up in less than half an hour. Most of her medication probably wouldn’t last long enough to be useful. Even the pain killers she used for cattle would get through his system too quickly to take any real effect, and she was terrified of giving him too much. The last thing she wanted was for his stomach to rebel and put more pressure on that side wound. She took a breath, once again cursing herself for not doing more investigation into his biology before now.

“S’rry,” Sonic panted, clenching his eyes shut. “Wh- what are we… I was – my cave. Went to my cave. Right. Rings. Where’m… rings.”

“You want your rings?” she guessed, and then shook her head. Another thing they didn’t need was Sonic knocking one of his rings and opening a portal to who knew where. With his luck he’d fall into it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Do you want some water? Do you think you could help me look at your bandages?”

He grunted, shaking his head as best he could. “M’fine. M’fine. Gotta –” He grit his teeth and started shifting again, obviously trying to get up, but all Maddie had to do was put a hand on his shoulder and push for him to fall back down again. He gulped down air, fist flexing against the cushion. “No. Gotta go. Gotta – can’t –”

“It’s okay,” Maddie said softly. “It’s okay, Sonic. You’re safe. We’re gonna keep you safe. You just need to stay still, okay?”

“Mm-mm. Tr’ble. Gotta…” He stilled as her hand curled over his fist, and then opened his eyes to look at her. “D’s… does he… D-Don- Donut Lord. Tom. Does he –” He paused to swallowed past a spike of pain. “Does he know?”

She frowned. She didn’t like how little sense he was making. “He helped me fix you up, Sonic, of course he knows.”

“No. I mean… does he _know_?” he asked again. “I don’t – I c- can’t…”

“He knows what happened to Joey,” she said. “We’re so proud of you for saving him. But you should’ve come back to us, not your cave. You really scared us.”

But he just shook his head again. “Sh’d – should’ve… sh’d’ve stopped… no. No.” He pushed against her shoulder, and this time she had to put some actual pressure down to keep him from moving. He glared in response. “Lemme go.”

“What? No. Sonic,” she said, and shuffled a little closer, her other hand tightening around his. “Everything is gonna be fine. No one’s coming after you; we’ll keep you safe. But you have to stay still. You’re still hurt and you need to let yourself heal.”

“No,” he said again. “Tom – gotta – I –”

The sound of tires on gravel made Maddie look up and around, her heart leaping into her throat. But keys in the lock made her breathing start again and she turned back to see Sonic staring with wide eyes. She squeezed his hand. “See? Tom’s home now, and –”

“Maddie? Sonic?” Tom called as he came through the door, accompanied by Ozzy’s nails dancing against the wood. “No, Ozzy, you gotta stay outside for now. Go on, out. Good boy. Maddie?”

“In here!” she called, and the door slammed shut a moment before he rushed into the lounge. Sonic only looked more pained at the sight of him, but Tom scrambled around the couch to drop down beside them, one hand reaching out to touch the side of Sonic’s head.

“Hey. You’re awake. Hey buddy. How you feeling? You okay? How’s he doing?” he added to Maddie, who grimaced.

“We’re just figuring that out.”

When Tom looked back at him, Sonic dropped his gaze, his body jerking slightly as he fought the pain and whatever was going through his head. “I’m – sorry. I’m not – not sorry, I…” He tried to take a deep breath, only for it to catch and make him cough. It took him a few moments to recover from that, clenching his eyes shut, but when he looked up again he was clearly doing his best to speak clearly. “Tom. There was – this guy and –”

“Hey,” Tom said firmly, running his hand out and over Sonic’s quills. “I know. Don’t worry, we got him. Well, _you_ got him. But I found him. He’s going to be locked up for a long time. Don’t worry.”

Sonic choked slightly, jerking his head but obviously not willing to shake it now Tom’s hand was so close to his spikes. “No. I… I hurt… him. Bad.”

Maddie stilled, her eyes rolling around to Tom, and he winced. She’d assumed Sonic had fought back, but Tom hadn’t actually given her any details. But he certainly hadn’t implied Sonic had killed him, so… Tom didn’t linger on her silent question, instead going back to Sonic. “No one blames you, Sonic. He was trying to hurt Joey. He deserved everything he got.”

Sonic grunted vaguely. “You don’t – I felt… something crack. Something cracked. Inside.”

“His ribs, yeah,” Tom admitted softly. “You got his jaw pretty good, too.”

“I – I know you have to –” Sonic abruptly stopped at another spike of pain, and Maddie made up her mind.

“Okay, that’s enough. No more talking, okay? Just shh. It’s fine. You’re okay. I’m gonna go and get that Tylenol,” She gave Tom a meaningful look as she stood up, shifting her hands to his shoulders as she whispered to him, “Try and calm him down.”

Honestly, she was pretty sure basic human painkillers weren’t going to do anything. But Sonic was clearly getting upset and straining himself, so it was time to focus on mechanics. Basic things like food, water, and medication were unlikely to add any further emotional trauma, and that made them the safest things to address.

By the time she got back, Tom had decided to go with the reassurance angle instead. “You’re not in trouble, Sonic. Listen to me. You’re _not_ in trouble,” he said firmly. He had replaced Maddie’s hold on Sonic’s shoulder, his other hand tucked between Sonic’s head and the armchair to force his gaze. “ _No one_ is mad at you. Everyone in town is with you on this. Everyone.”

“But –”

“No. Listen to me. What you did to that guy was defence. You were defending yourself. You were defending Joey. No one is going to blame you for that.”

“But I’m –”

“I thought I said no more talking,” Maddie interrupted, grabbing the abandoned water bottle before settling on the arm of the chair. “Sonic, this is going to hurt, but Tom is going to sit you up now, okay? Try and lean back against the cushion.”

Tom glanced up at her, wide-eyed and nervous, but he didn’t argue. He slowly extended his arms out, gathering Sonic up in order to shift him into a sitting position. Sonic audibly bit down on a shout of pain as he was moved, and then another one as his stiffened quills caught on the chair and blanket, but managed to hold it together as Tom settled him back down. It was impressive, but had once again taken a lot out of him, and he could only pant breathlessly as Tom quickly smoothed his hands over the sides of Sonic’s face, discreetly pushing away a few tears. As things calmed down again, he shifted back to Sonic’s shoulders. “Okay? You still with me, buddy?”

“Mm. Mmhm,” he grunted. “It uh… ow.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard gunshots kinda sting,” he tried to joke. “You lost a couple of real good chunks, from what I saw.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d been able to get to it sooner,” Maddie admonished, but when the boys peeked up at her she couldn’t really bring herself to give Sonic the look she’d been aiming for. She could only pull back her lips and lift the painkillers in point. “I want you to take these. It’s more than I would give me or Tom, so I want you to tell me the second you start feeling sick, okay?”

Sonic scrunched his muzzle but didn’t argue. He took the pills in mulish silence, accepting her help with the water bottle to swallow them. He had to cough and take another couple of seconds to breathe afterward, and then dropped his head back against the chair. “My leg is killing me. But why does it hurt to… everything?”

“Because your torso is smaller than my head and you got _shot_ on your _hip_ ,” she said shortly. “Every movement you make strains the muscles on your side.”

“Oh. Right. Ow.”

“But like I said,” she added, calming down slightly, “I’m mostly worried about your leg. You need to stay off it until it heals, you hear me? No running until I say so,” she ordered. He opened one eye to look at her again but didn’t say anything, so Maddie sighed, suddenly overcome with tiredness. “We were really scared last night, Sonic. And I’m still worried. You need to be more careful.”

“Mm,” was his only answer, his eye closing again, and both Tom and Maddie frowned.

“No, Sonic,” Tom said, prompting Sonic to open his eyes again. “This is serious. We didn’t know what had happened to you. We looked everywhere for you. And to know you were hurt… you could’ve – you _were_ lying half-dead in a ditch when we found you!”

“Cave,” Sonic corrected wearily. “Half-dead in… my cave.”

“It’s not your cave anymore. Our attic is your cave now,” Maddie snapped. She almost immediately regretted the tone, knowing none of their anger was helping, but Sonic didn’t really react to it, so she could only just lower her voice as she said, “You should have come home.”

“No… I screwed up,” he mumbled. “Didn’t – I don’t wanna… mess things… up f’you.”

“What do you mean?” Tom demanded. “What, did you think we wouldn’t care? You thought we wouldn’t help you?”

Sonic grumbled, his eyes falling shut for a moment before he sighed and reopened them. Pain was still the most prominent thing on his face, but something seemed resigned, too. “You’re a cop.”

“So?” Tom demanded. “That’s all the more reason that you should have come to me! I had to spend hours figuring out what happened, Sonic! Hours that you spent hurt and alone and – don’t you think I have a right to be upset about that?”

He shook his head slightly. “Didn’t want you to… That guy… you would’ve… hidden. You would’ve hidden… what I did.”

“What you did?” he repeated, glancing up at Maddie. “What do you mean? You saved Joey’s life.”

“Mm-mm. I’ve got… s-super powers,” he said, eyes falling shut again. “With great power comes… great responsibility and – all that. Shouldn’t’ve…” He paused again to wince, his hand flexing near where his leg was hidden beneath the blanket. “Flash never speed-punches… humans.”

“What?”

“Wait, Sonic, honey,” Maddie said, leaning over as if he would open his eyes and look at her, “are you… are you worried because… because you used your powers against an ordinary man? Because it wasn’t fair?”

“What?” Tom said again, immediately furious. “Sonic! He had a gun! He _shot_ you! Twice! And you feel bad about _hitting_ him?”

He made a vague noise of disagreement. “No,” he admitted. “Don’t feel bad. He hurt Joe. Joe’s a good guy. I like Joe. I didn’t like that guy…”

“So then… what?”

“S’wrong,” he said, as if it was obvious. “A martial artist doesn’t… y’know… pick on the weak. They protect, they don’t… mm.”

Tom just stared at him for a second, while Maddie looked up and around the living room. Even without the bad pop-culture references, she was a little flabbergasted. Of all the reasons Sonic could have picked for not coming home…

“Cops stop that kind’ve stuff,” Sonic continued. “The Rock would’ve… Didn’t want you to… You already went on the lam f’me. S’bad. S’no good. I didn’t… I didn’t want you to –”

“Sonic, do me a favour,” Tom said shortly, “shut up.”

“But –”

“Just – just don’t,” he said, and then sighed before looking up at Maddie. She stared back helplessly. What were they supposed to say?

“Mm,” Sonic drew their attention back as he shifted again, but it was hard to see whether his expression was more pained or apologetic. “Should feel more bad. Broke stuff. Should – should feel bad about that. Still don’t though. Sorry. Please don’t… try to arrest me. I don’t… I don’t wanna leave. I like it here…” He trailed off into panting, and Maddie rolled her eyes, once again unable to find any appropriate response. She was angry. She was exasperated. She couldn’t do a damn thing about any of it.

Tom, however, nodded quietly. “I’m not gonna arrest you, Sonic.”

His eyes were still closed, but Sonic grinned and coughed out something that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “D-didn’t say you _could_.”

Tom’s returning smile was forced. “Oh, I could. I’m not going to, though. What I am gonna do… is ground you.”

“What?” Sonic forced his eyes open to stare blearily. “Ground…?”

“You missed curfew,” he explained. “You’re not leaving this house for a week.”

Sonic blinked. “Curf- what?”

“One hundred percent. We have rules in this house, and you need to follow them,” he said. “All alien hedgehogs need to be home before nine. You completely ignored that, and that means you’re grounded.”

“You… that’s what you’re…” Sonic swallowed hard. “But –”

“It’s what I’m gonna focus on in this whole big ball of me bein’ mad at you, yeah,” Tom said, his voice tightening as he visibly struggled with his anger. “Because the other stuff, about you not trusting me, and not coming home when you’re hurt, and… all that… that’s a month. You’re grounded for a month.”

“Wh-” Sonic coughed again, his mouth splitting in a weak smile as he blinked rapidly shining eyes. “That is – so not f-fair. You never – never told me about any… curfew.”

“Didn’t think I had to,” he said. “My house, my rules.”

“But –” Sonic gasped, snatching at his torso, then made another noise that was half-laugh. “Look at you, try’na… you’re not my real –” He had to cut off as the choking got through to him, and he shoved the heel of his hand against one of his eyes. “No – no fair pullin’ stuff like that when… when I can’t – laugh at you.”

“Well, I’m not all too pleased with you pulling heroic junk when we aren’t there to keep you safe, either,” he said. “You’re still grounded.”

Sonic huffed and lifted the other hand to paw at both of his eyes. “I’m not – this is ’cause’ve… pain tears… m’not crying.”

“Oh, good,” Maddie drawled. The typical show of machismo from a two-foot tall alien child that had been shot twice and then worried they’d be angry he hurt the man responsible was doing absolutely nothing for her bad mood. She tried for humour anyway, because it might calm at least one of them down. “Because I don’t think the Donut Lord’s rules stand up to tears.”

“Then I am c-crying,” Sonic joked, and she shook her head irritably before gesturing for Tom to move.

“You forget that the Donut Lord’s rules are superseded by Queen Maddie’s powers. And the only reason _I’m_ not grounding you for a year is because I choose to believe blood loss meant you weren’t thinking straight,” she said as she swung around to kneel in front of him. “Now, I’m gonna look at your leg, okay? Try not to kick.”

As she’d half-expected, both wounds were well on their way to healing. The stitches already looked days old, though there was some swelling on Sonic’s side that she didn’t like and his leg was still seeping a little. She was still confident he would make an inexplicable recovery in too fast a time.

While she worked, Tom made a bowl of soup that Sonic drank half of without too much issue. They would have liked him to get more of it down, but it was obvious that the conversation and all the emotions wrapped up in it had been too much for him. He was barely conscious when he handed back the bowl, and fell asleep the moment they helped him lie down again.

They retreated to the kitchen table. Tom was shaking.

“I fought killer robots for him,” he said softly. “Punched out a government scientist. Twice. Abused my badge. Lied to one of the highest ranking members of military. He didn’t even blink at any of that. Because I owed him. I shot him. I get it, I shot him, I owed him. Okay, fine. And yet he’d rather die in a hole than –” He paused, staring blindly at the soup bowl. “What… what would I even – what choice did he think I’d have to make?”

Maddie let out a long breath through her teeth.

She could kind of understand Sonic’s logic, if she separated it from reality and thought about it like fiction. In all the stupid kung-fu movies they’d watched, there was a definite code of ethics that martial artists followed. Superheroes had very similar codes, come to think of it. It just didn’t come up as a legitimate moral dilemma so often.

If you were stronger or more powerful than someone else, you were supposed to hold back. You could humiliate someone weaker if they really pushed you, but you weren’t supposed to actually hurt them. Even if they somehow managed to hurt you or one of your friends, heroes only ever did enough to make their opponents stop and regret their actions.

Doing more than that made you an anti-hero. Anti-heroes, in the action movies they watched, weren’t really ‘good guys’. And police—even small-town sheriffs like Tom—arrested bad guys.

When they’d first met, Sonic hadn’t really fallen into those categories, and (in movie terms) that made it more clear-cut. Sonic had been running away from people that wanted to dissect him, Tom had made that harder, so it was (in movie terms) Tom’s responsibility to help him.

But following the choppy movie logic, this time it was more complicated. Sonic had incredible powers, and whether he’d used those powers or not, they made him more powerful than some bastard with a gun. By hurting someone ‘weaker’ than him, he’d done the (movie-)morally wrong thing, even though it was real-world justified. Even the Nolan-era Batman did little more than tie up psychotic evil-doers, no matter how dangerous they were, and his physically beating them up meant that siding with him had nearly ruined Commissioner Gordon’s career.

Sonic not wanting to put Tom through that made a horrible, twisted, fairy-tale sort of sense.

And it implied that he didn’t really trust them to have his back.

Maddie rubbed her face, feeling every minute of the last twenty-four hours piling on her shoulders.

“I just wish he’d come home,” she whispered, and failed to bite back her tears.


	3. Isn't what it seems

Wade knocked on the door to his office but didn’t come in, his eyes focussed on the front room. “Got trouble, Tom.”

He glanced away from his computer, raising an eyebrow. “What kind of trouble?”

“More strangers. The suit is blue, but I’m getting real Men in Black vibes.”

He pursed his lips and saved his report, just in case this turned into A Thing. “About time they showed up.”

Only one of the two people that came in was wearing a blue suit – the other one was in army green, and she didn’t bother acknowledging Caitlin’s presence at the front desk, immediately focussing on Tom as he stepped into the doorway. “Sheriff Wachowski.”

“Tom’s fine,” he said, folding his arms and leaning on the door frame. “You seem a long way from home. I assume I can help you, somehow?”

Her offsider was looking around the station suspiciously, like they actually thought he had anything worth hiding in a government building. The two of them were an interesting pair – more professional than any of the government agents he’d met so far, and clearly not playing whatever friendly game the head honcho had been with the Olive Garden card. He wondered if that was a good or bad sign.

“We’re assisting with the investigation regarding the alleged attempted murder of one of your citizens, a Joseph Thompson the second,” the woman said crisply. “Are you aware that evidence has gone missing from the case?”

“Evidence?” he repeated, frowning warily. “What kind of evidence? It better not impact that bastard’s trial.”

“I couldn’t say,” she said. “But it was of limited importance. It could have identified the intervening witness.”

Tom blinked. With people like this, that meant they knew it could have identified Sonic. Was this some kind of test…? “Oh. Yeah, we never found him. Have you got anything else on the guy?”

“By ‘guy’, I assume you mean the intervening witness,” she said. “No. DNA evidence was found at the scene and assumed to be left by the witness, but as I said, that evidence has gone missing. We are attempting to track it down.”

Wade and Caitlin looked at Tom nervously, but he didn’t have anything. Honestly, he’d kind of forgotten about the blood Sonic had left behind – he’d been a little preoccupied with making sure more of it didn’t come out. Besides, if these two were legitimately going to question him, they wouldn’t still be standing out in the open and telling him anything directly.

This was the government telling him they’d taken care of it.

“Oh, geez, that’s… damn. I was really hoping you’d find the guy. Wanted to give him a medal,” he said. “But Joey’s the only one in town who’s shown up with any injuries, and no one’s coming forward… Wish I could help.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, on behalf of the American Justice System, we would like to thank you for your pragmatic assistance in this case. It may not seem like much, but your willingness to let the detectives do their work unhindered was of great assistance.”

“Sure. Hey, if you see them, pass on my thanks too. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how this whole thing pans out in the courts,” he said, and she nodded, her lips twitching slightly.

“Arraignment has been delayed until such point as the accused wakes up. But I doubt there will be any surprises. Thank you for your time, Sheriff.” She turned and would have started for the door, except her offsider pointedly coughed, bringing her abruptly to a halt. She sighed loudly and withdrew an envelope from her breast pocket, which she set down on the counter in front of Caitlin. “A token of thanks,” she said, even more deadpan than before, and then strode out of the building in silence, her offsider following with only a quick nod.

Tom scowled, leaning back on the doorframe the better to watch them through the glass of the front door. He didn’t like this game he was being forced to play with the government, but he liked the idea of them having access to Sonic even less.

As the two agents drove off, Wade cautiously picked up the envelope and slit it open with one finger, leaning back as he carefully peeked inside. Then he frowned and leaned back in, pulling out a folded over piece of cardboard.

“Fifty bucks at Olive Garden?”

Snarling, Tom snatched it from him and stormed back into his office.

* * *

“Roll-call, Prisoner Hedgehog!”

Sonic scowled over the top of the Switch console, annoyance only increasing when Tom sarcastically paused, his eyebrows raised, obviously waiting for a response. With no other option, Sonic sank down a little lower in the blanket nest Maddie had made for him on the floor of the clinic’s back office. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”

“But the real question is: have you stayed there?”

Every new day made it harder to respond to that question civilly.

According to Maddie, Sonic had proven he couldn’t be trusted not to overdo it the moment he woke up the first time. He didn’t remember it, but apparently he’d been barely conscious and yet still decided to sit up and check out his injuries.

He proved it to himself less than two days into his recovery, when Maddie and her assistant Joel had left him alone in the back room of the vet clinic, and he realised he’d left the book he was going to read at home. Home was like a twenty-second jog. His leg was fine. No one would even know he was gone.

He barely got to the road before his leg started bleeding and he nearly collapsed, breathless with pain. When he’d limped back into the clinic, Maddie had been so furious he seriously debated whether his leg remaining in one piece was really worth sticking around to be yelled at.

After that, he’d… mostly learned his lesson. He hadn’t tried running again, even though he really was feeling much better now. He could walk fine, and he’d started tapping into his powers to let himself walk _fast_ , so it was at least tolerable. He was pretty sure he’d be able to run if anyone would let him, but he hadn’t found a good reason to test it. Maddie was scary.

But the real problem—what was actually driving him crazy—was being grounded.

He hadn’t realised just how serious Tom and Maddie were when they’d said that. He’d thought it was one of their stupid reassuring jokes, meant to calm him down and let him know they cared. But they really had locked him down completely. He wasn’t allowed _anywhere_ on his own except the bathroom, and even then if he took more than three minutes they rapped on the door for a response to prove he hadn’t jumped out the window.

He had to sleep in the armchair with either Tom or Maddie crashed on the couch, just to make sure he didn’t do anything in the middle of the night. He had to go into the clinic with Maddie every day Tom went to work, and spend every afternoon with whoever got off work first. He’d read every hardcopy book everyone in the neighbourhood owned, broken Maddie’s eReader because he kept trying to turn the pages faster than it could load, and now he was stuck playing video games all day every day because they were the only thing he couldn’t speed through to keep him from going completely braindead.

He loved Tom and Maddie more than life itself, but when he’d wanted companionship, this _was not it_.

“Still sulking, huh?” Tom asked when Sonic didn’t bother responding to him, and strode over to set the filing box he’d been carrying down next to him. “Well, I’ve got good news for you. I swung by the library and picked you up some more books. Welcome to the wizarding world of Harry Potter.”

“Saw those movies already,” he grumbled. “Fourth one was the best.”

“They were books before they were movies. And Maddie says they’re better in printed form. More importantly, there’s seven of them, so they might actually last you a day.”

Sonic looked up again, then sideways at the box. It was annoying how tempting they were right now. He put the game on pause and leaned over to lift the lid, a little more of his interest piquing when he saw the size of a couple of them. They would definitely take him longer than the last series Tom had brought him. And he didn’t actually know how it ended – Tom and Maddie didn’t have the last few movies, so he’d only watched up to the point when the bad guy came back to life.

He dropped the lid with a huff. “Yeah, okay.”

Tom smirked and didn’t comment, instead turning to peek at the box of snacks they’d left him. He’d barely touched it all day, which apparently wasn’t acceptable to his bailiff. “You find something else to eat?”

“No,” he said, giving in to the conversation and setting the Switch aside. “I just haven’t been hungry.”

Tom stared at him doubtfully, and Sonic threw up his hands.

“Come on! You guys are still making me eat three _meals_ a day, and normally I go running to burn off all those calories! Meanwhile, I’ve had nothing to do, no calories to burn, I’m not hungry!” he cried. “I’ve been a good little hedgehog! I’ve barely moved from these stupid blankets in six hours! Joel comes in here like every twenty minutes to check on me! I am going,” he added in what might have been a conspiratorial tone if he’d lowered his voice even slightly, “to barricade his desk with boxes of stationary if he comes in pretending to need paperclips even one more time.”

Tom visibly bit back his smile, but didn’t actually say anything in response. He just dug into the open bag of pretzels and stuffed a handful in his mouth before turning to drop down on the floor beside him. “Calm down, kid. You’ve got a whole ’nother three weeks of incarceration and I don’t think it’s gonna get any easier.”

“Tom,” he said, getting up onto his knees. “Please. This is not funny. This is a kind of torture.”

“It’s for your own good,” he said blithely. “You need to let yourself heal, and we can’t trust you to do that.”

“I am healing,” he said, and gestured with both hands to the bandage around his torso. “This is fine! This was one hundred percent fine when Maddie checked it this morning!”

“Not quite the percentage I would use,” Maddie called from the clinic. They both looked up to see her leaning into the doorway, her hands still soapy from where she was obviously washing them after the last patient. “I’ll let you go bandage free on your chest tomorrow. The leg stays wrapped though.”

Sonic waited until she’d turned away and then silently raged with flailing hands in her general direction. Tom covered his mouth with his fist and still didn’t say anything, so Sonic turned wild eyes back on him. “I say this with all the sincerity in the world: If you do not let me out, I am going to _die_.”

“How about you make it until the end of the week and we’ll talk?” Tom asked in a deadpan. “At least prove to me you understand why you’re in trouble.”

It took everything Sonic had not to tell him it was because Tom was secretly a sick and twisted man that enjoyed seeing Sonic’s sanity bleed out of his ears. He took a deep breath and instead repeated what Tom had told him, “I can’t be trusted not to let myself heal, so I have to stay still until Maddie says I’m better. Fine. I can deal with that. But it will not take a month for –”

“No, buddy, that’s only one of the reasons,” he said firmly. “You scared us to high hell last week. I know you’ve been taking care of yourself for a while now—”

“Ten _years_ ,” Sonic snapped, only more annoyed when that made Tom’s jaw and brow twitch like he didn’t already know it.

“—but you cannot keep shutting us out. You need to let us help you. Until you realise that, you’re –”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “Is that what you want? I’m _sorry_. I’m really, really grateful for everything you guys do for me. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you for help. I was a little preoccupied. But –”

Tom cut him off with a loud, wordless noise, waving a finger in his face until Sonic gave up. Clearly Tom was not in the mood for a serious conversation. Thankfully, Maddie finished washing her hands and came through the door before he could decide to try again.

“We can talk about timelines after you’re fully healed,” she said. “Until then, you’re mostly stuck here because I don’t want you ruining all my good work again. Do you understand that, at least?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but had to admit he kind of did. He’d scared himself that day he’d tried to leave the clinic on his own – he’d never been hurt like this before, so as much as he felt fine, he could accept that Maddie probably did know better.

“Okay then. Tom, any plans for the afternoon?” Maddie asked, apparently trying to calm the situation with a distraction, but Tom grimaced.

“Uh, yeah. I’m actually just stopping by to drop off the books,” he said, glancing at Sonic sideways. “I can’t take you home today, kiddo.”

“What?” Maddie glanced at Sonic before frowning at Tom. “Why?”

“I finally had that visit from the government we’ve been waiting on.”

They both balked, even Sonic’s anger giving way to sudden nerves. The government could cause Tom and Maddie a lot of trouble, and they probably still wanted to dissect him. If they were back in town…

“It’s fine,” Tom said quickly, holding up his hands, “they were basically just stopping by to let me know everything’s fine. They stole Sonic’s bloodwork from the case, I think.”

“My bloodwork?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“You left a lot of it behind,” Tom reminded him. “CSU were going to use it to identify the ‘witness’ that saved Joey.”

Sonic blinked, while Maddie added, “They would have seen that it wasn’t human. That would have led to questions.”

“Oh. But… the government took it?”

Tom nodded. “Which could be its own kind of problem. They know you exist, but I’m not sure how much we want them to know about you. I’m not even sure how much they can figure out from some blood, but it’s kind of worrying.”

“Is it like TV?” asked Sonic. “On that CSI show they can basically figure out everything that happened just from blood stains.”

“I don’t think CSI is exactly a reliable source,” Tom told him with a smirk that disappeared as he looked up at Maddie. “What do you think?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she admitted. “Pathology was never my strong suit. Sonic’s blood looks like normal blood to me, but I always send away for test results.”

Tom hummed and got back to his feet. “Yeah, I know. So do most of the sheriffs that have to deal with that kind of stuff. So I was thinking I might call into Regional, try and sweet-talk Dominique into giving me some information on the case.”

“You think she’d know anything?” she asked doubtfully. “Isn’t this whole thing getting handled by the city police?”

“Yeah, but… worth a shot,” he said. “So uh… sorry to dodge bailiff duties, but…”

“You have got to stop calling it that,” she said. “If Sonic doesn’t kill you for it, I think I might.”

He grinned and kissed her cheek before turning back to Sonic. “Be good for Maddie, okay? I’ll bring pizza home for dinner,” he added to both of them, before ducking back into the clinic and out. Maddie leaned around to watch him go, then turned back to Sonic.

“Sorry you have to be stuck here a little longer. Just another couple of hours, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said absently, still watching the doorway. He wasn’t sure why, but the reminder that there was a case—something worth investigating—was doing something weird in the back of his head.

It was kind of strange, how quickly he’d stopped thinking about it. If not for his injuries, he felt like he might have forgotten the whole thing even happened.

He hadn’t gone to visit Joe yet – Maddie had let him use her phone to facetime him, but she said an actual visit was too much of a risk until his injuries stabilised. Now that he felt they were stable, it felt kind of lousy, not seeing him in person.

And he definitely hadn’t thought much about the jerk he’d put in the hospital. Tom had kind of implied he was still alive but not well. But Sonic didn’t know what ‘not well’ meant. He felt like he should know. He felt like he should _care_.

It felt weird to realise he hadn’t even thought about any of it in days.

But Maddie was waiting for him to react to the news he wasn’t leaving early, so he just slumped back against the blankets and picked up the Switch again. “I’ll just stay here then, huh? What’s a couple more hours of dazzling animated gameplay?”

“Okay, enough. I’ll be back to check on you after my next patient,” she said, heading back into the clinic.

He waited for the door to close behind her, then tossed the console aside again.

This was going to take some planning.

* * *

There was a certain trick to appearing asleep while actually being awake and alert. He felt like there should be snoring. People always snored on TV. But there had been a few times when he actually had been sleeping and Tom had spoken to him only to flinch when Sonic jerked awake. Apparently he slept pretty silently at least some of the time. It still felt like it couldn’t work without it, though.

But he tried his best anyway, curling up with his head on the cushion and eyes closed, breathing a little more deeply than felt natural. He didn’t have a lot of control over his ears, but he did his best to make them relax so they would lie a little flatter. And then he had to struggle to actually stay awake, listening to Tom and Maddie quietly say their goodnights. Tom had taken the couch tonight, which was annoying because he was a lighter sleeper. But Sonic would deal.

He was dealing with a lot lately.

For example, how much he loathed the armchair that had become his bed recently. After being his sickbed, it reeked of antiseptic and blood, which made Sonic reek of it even now that he was mostly better. He couldn’t wait to go roll through the forest somewhere and get his quills covered in grass and moss just to smell normal again.

He was also dealing with increasingly confused feelings about Maddie and Tom, too. He loved them. He really did. And he was so grateful. But the last few days, he’d started to… resent them. No, not them. He resented the control they were trying to have over him. He knew they thought it was for his own good—heck, some of it _was_ for his own good—but some of it…

And this afternoon, planning his next steps, he’d been dealing with… stuff. Other stuff.

That stuff was hard.

He peeked one eye open, and then carefully lifted his head to check whether Tom was asleep yet. _Tom_ snored. Quietly, but still. Watching warily, Sonic flicked off his blanket and swung his legs over to drop down onto the carpet. He made a soft thump and froze, but Tom’s eyebrows only twitched before he settled down again.

Still moving at a human pace just to be safe, Sonic took a deep breath and walked across the room to grab one of the cushions that had been thrown aside. He bunched it up into a ball and shoved it under the blanket, trying to make it look convincing enough that a half-asleep glance would make Tom think he was still there. It wouldn’t be good enough with the lights on, but it was gonna have to do.

He continued at his slow, careful pace as he left the living room and moved into the kitchen. He briefly debated using the door before remembering it was always locked at night. He didn’t want to mess around with keys. But… his eyes dropped to Ozzy’s dog door, and he smirked. They’d really made it way too easy.

“Okay,” he whispered once he was outside. “Okay, let’s take this slow. Don’t push it, Sonic.”

First he jumped, bouncing on his toes twice before dropping down to stretch out his legs. He kept an eye on the bandages as he pushed his bad leg, judging the pain and ultimately deciding it was acceptable. He wouldn’t go all out. No tricks. Just a simple light jog.

But the moment he started running – when he felt the wind in his quills, the hard ground reaching up to meet his feet, felt the stretch and pull and freedom of every movement… It hurt a little, sure, and he could already guess that Maddie would be able to tell he’d done something, but holy hecking heck it felt like the best run he’d _ever_ had!

He was at Joe’s house in minutes and didn’t regret it for a second.

The windows were all locked up tight, which was kind of surprising for Green Hills. In all the time Sonic had lived here, he’d never known anyone to completely lock up their house when they were home. But, just like Tom and Maddie, the Thompsons had left the same opening.

“Dog door?” he joked to himself as he pulled it open. “More like hedgehog hole! Comin’ through!”

But as he crawled inside and then looked up and around at the living room, all the good humour he’d found vanished.

The dark, rearranged room wasn’t funny at all.

Joe was curled up on a mattress in the middle of the floor, surrounded by all sorts of toys that Sonic knew made a lot of noise. Nerf guns, alarm whistles, even an old laser shooter that Sonic had seen the kids playing with a few years back. When you shot it, it flashed and made a high-pitched alarm noise that had always made Sonic’s ears hurt. As he walked closer, he noticed one other thing by the mattress.

“A switchblade?” he murmured, kneeling down to pick it up. There was a box-cutter too, poking out from under Joe’s pillow, though he didn’t touch that one yet. “Oh… wow…”

Joe was a nice kid. He wasn’t rough like everyone else on the soccer team. He didn’t get mad when they lost, or when someone tackled too hard. He said that was all part of the game. And he wasn’t good in a fight – the one time he’d come close to having one, he’d chickened out and run home to hide with his parents. His mom had called the other kid’s parents in a rage, who had been equally furious their son had tried to get in a fight, so nothing ever came of it.

And here he was, sleeping with weapons?

Sonic hesitated, then reached over and pulled the box cutter away. As he’d pretty much expected, the small movement was enough to jolt Joe awake, and he almost smacked Sonic in trying to reach for the switchblade that wasn’t there anymore. Sonic quickly put the knives down and held up his hands, shushing him to silence before he could voice the scream already on his lips.

“Sh-h-h! It’s me! It’s just me; it’s Sonic!” he hissed. “You can’t wake anyone up! Shh!”

Joe stared at him, breathing hard and fast for almost thirty seconds before he seemed to recognise him. Only then did he blink and shove himself upright. “Sonic?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, and Joe looked over him, his eyes widening.

“Sonic… you – are those bandages? Are you hurt? Wait, what are you doing here? What’s going on? Is everything okay? What’s happening?”

“Shh! Calm down!” he whispered, waving his hands again. “Everything’s fine! I just – I’m just – it’s okay. Everything’s okay. I just wanted to – to see you, I guess.”

“Now? It’s like –” He stopped, looking around the room for a clock. “What time is it?”

“Late. I know. Sorry. But it was the only way I could come see you,” he said, and then corrected himself with a grin. “I mean, without Sheriff Tom on my back. I haven’t been able to move without his say-so.”

Joe stared at him blankly for a couple of seconds, still panting as the last of the panic faded. Eventually, he shifted around on the mattress to face him properly and nodded his understanding. “Yeah, same. Mom and Dad won’t let me leave the house. Not that I really want to. But… y’know.”

Sonic grimaced, then lowered his eyes to the toys around them. “What’s all this?”

“Oh, it… y’know,” Joe hesitated again, rubbing the back of his neck. “I dunno, I just… I have these… nightmares, I guess. They kinda help.”

“Nightmares?”

“About… about Rob. Or – Adam, I guess his name is. Him. Coming back. I dunno, I just… Mom says he’s in hospital, and there are police on him, and everything, but…” He trailed off, his eyes wandering through the darkness before returning to Sonic, only to immediately drop down to his bandages. “Those… Are you really hurt? I thought you said it was no big deal on the phone.”

He shrugged. Facetiming had been easy, because he didn’t have to show anything but his head, and humans weren’t good at telling when he looked tired. So he’d been able to say the injuries were nothing, and that Maddie was making too much fuss over a couple of scratches.

But sitting here, surrounded by a whole bunch of useless security measures that helped Joe sleep at night…

It had been less than a week, and Sonic had almost forgotten ‘Rob’ completely. He was a jerk, and he’d caused a situation that Sonic hated, but he hadn’t seemed worth remembering.

Meanwhile, Joe would probably never be able to forget him.

He wrapped his arm around his torso, trying to hide the bandage. It was nothing, but it didn’t feel right to wave it all off as no big deal.

“I got hurt, yeah,” he said softly. “But I hurt him, too. Maybe worse. I dunno, I think it’s hard to tell. I heal pretty quick.”

“You do everything pretty quick,” Joe whispered, and Sonic looked up at him with a wry smile.

“You know it.” He paused, struggling not to touch his leg and draw attention to the bandage there instead. “I’m feeling loads better. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I know, I… I just…” Joe clenched his eyes shut, and when he next spoke his voice sounded thick. “I’m – I’m s-sorry I… I’m s-s-sorry you got h-hurt ’cause’ve –”

“Hey, no,” Sonic cut him off as firmly as he could without raising his voice above a whisper. “No, I didn’t get hurt ’cause’ve _you_.”

“B-but –”

“I got hurt because that guy was a psycho,” he said. “I would’ve done it for anyone. It just meant a more ’cause you’re my friend.”

Joe’s eyes immediately opened so he could stare at him again, wide-eyed. Sonic made sure to smile back.

“Seriously. And besides, like I said: I’m mostly all good now. Thanks for worrying and all, but yeah – don’t,” he said, and then paused again before forcing himself to add, “I uh… I’m… sorry I didn’t… y’know.”

“Didn’t what?” he asked breathlessly, and Sonic winced.

“Y’know. Stop him. I mean… I didn’t want you to get in the car,” he said. “S’why I followed you. It felt weird.”

“Yeah, it… it was pretty dumb of me,” Joe admitted, and Sonic shook his head.

“Nah. I thought I was being paranoid,” he said. “I mean… Tom says I kinda stalked the whole town for years, I shouldn’t be calling anyone out on being creepy.”

Joe huffed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh and shoved at his eyes. “It was still dumb of me. Who gets in a car with someone they don’t even know?”

“Um, like, every Uber user ever?”

Joe couldn’t quite laugh, still fighting tears, so Sonic leaned forward to continue.

“Besides, I should’ve done something, I… I saw you guys get out of the car. I saw you walk off, and I didn’t do anything. I was too busy worrying about being paranoid… If I’d… If I’d done something… I could’ve…” He cut off his own rambling, closing his eyes and letting his head fall. “I’m sorry, Joe.”

For a couple of seconds, Joe didn’t answer, just sniffled and choked back tears. Eventually he gulped down a large breath and shook his head hard. “Man, we’re both so stupid. We’re so fucking dumb…!”

Sonic flinched at the language, but then had to laugh at himself. Now was not the time to worry about that stuff. So he just leaned over and punched Joe’s arm. “You’re not dumb. I’m an idiot, and I screwed up, but –”

“You saved my life you idiot!” he sobbed. “You got fucking shot ’cause’ve me! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“Hey! H-hey, no, really!” he insisted. “I’m trying to apologise to you, here! You can’t apologise to me!”

“Sh-shut up!” he gasped. “I’m sorry!”

Sonic opened his mouth to keep panicking, but a light turning on in one of the rooms beyond made him freeze. He looked up at it, realised Joe’s parents had probably heard them and woken up, and then winced before quickly getting up to hold Joe’s shoulder.

“Hey, uh, look. Tom and Maddie can’t know I was here, okay?” he whispered. “So I gotta go, but… Joe. Seriously. I’m sorry. And you got nothing to be sorry for. I screwed up, but it’s okay. It’s all okay now. Everything’ll be fine. I promise. I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’ll see you soon,” he promised, and then, as soon as he saw the shape of Mr Thompson in the doorway, he slipped into full speed and ran for the door.

He didn’t come out of it until he was halfway out of town, and then stumbled to his knees, burying his face in his hands.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting.

That hadn’t been it.

* * *

Maddie didn’t even touch his bandages before she stopped and looked at him with pointedly raised eyebrows. “Should we bother with excuses or are you just going to tell me how you made such a mess of your bandages overnight?”

Sonic shook his head, avoiding her gaze. “Nope.”

“No what?”

He slowly lifted his head, though he still couldn’t bring himself to actually look at her. “I went out. I had to go.”

“You didn’t _have_ to,” she said, shifting her weight back on one hip. “So you’re telling me, after that conversation we all had yesterday, you went out last night? You deliberately disobeyed us. Where did you go? I hope it was it worth it!”

He furrowed his brow, wishing he was able to either meet her gaze or just apologise. But he couldn’t. He was so grateful for everything they’d done, he cared about them so much, but this felt like something he couldn’t apologise for. Something he had to stand by.

He didn’t really even know what it was he was standing by. That he should have been able to see Joe? His right to leave? Or was this just… was this just yet another weird bit of crazy he’d never noticed before?

“I dunno,” he said eventually. “But I had to do it.”

Maddie stared at him silently for a minute, and he could feel her expression slowly changing from anger to something else. She tilted her head down, trying to catch his gaze, and when he shifted to keep avoiding it she put her hand on his cheek to stop him. “Hey… you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. He still couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t face whatever was in her eyes.

In the end, she let go and reached for his bandages. “We need to talk about this when you’re ready, okay?”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t answer. At this rate, he didn’t know if he ever would be.

* * *

Given the conversation, Sonic was kind of expecting Maddie to call Tom and tell him Sonic had snuck out, but if she did, it wasn’t where he could hear. She didn’t mention it at all, except when she left him in the back room with a surprisingly gentle, “Let me know if that leg starts acting up today, okay? I don’t think it liked whatever you did to it last night.”

It did kind of ache. His side did too.

But he refused to let them stop him. He’d decided. Nothing would stop him now.

“So…” Sonic prompted when Tom picked him up that afternoon.

“No, we’re not having the grounded conversation yet,” he said. “Not until Doctor Maddie clears you for active duty, remember?”

Sonic blinked, and then looked back at the clinic, wondering if this meant Maddie really hadn’t told him. He frowned, but didn’t say anything as he clambered up into the car, instead waiting for Tom to get settled before trying again. “So then, what’re we doing this afternoon? Another movie? Can I pick this one?”

“Actually… you know I didn’t have much luck yesterday,” he said as he started up the ignition. “So I thought maybe we could go and visit Joey. I’d like to talk to his parents about the investigation, and you can see how he’s doing.”

Ugh. Potentially busted. But not definitely; not yet.

“Okay. Cool. Been wanting to stop by and apologise.”

“Apologise?” Tom repeated, tossing a quick frown at him as he started backing out onto the road. “What d’you have to apologise for?”

“You know, not… stopping it,” he explained. “Sooner. Y’know. Not doin’ something as soon as the car stopped. Or before.”

Tom pressed his lips together with a wince, shaking his head very slightly. “Mmm… gonna… no. No, buddy. Yeah, I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what? I screwed up, I should –”

“Yeah, no,” he said. “You screwed up _after_ the fight, not before.”

“But I knew something was wrong,” he insisted. “I followed the car because I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t do anything. Even when they got out and walked into the fields! I should’ve done something!”

“With hindsight, yeah,” Tom agreed, opening his palm against the steering wheel and still shaking his head. “In hindsight, you – I mean we all would’ve done a lot of things in hindsight. Mr Thompson wouldn’t’ve gone to the bar. He never would have mentioned Joey in front of that son of a bitch. I would’ve gone looking for you when you didn’t come home. Maddie would’ve gone straight to the cave when I told her what was going on. Hindsight’s a twenty-twenty bitch.”

“But it was so obvious!” he cried, flailing his hands out in front of him. “I didn’t need to check out the car, but I did! Even when I found that shotgun – I should’ve gone straight after him, but I didn’t, ’cause I kept thinking that there are a million reasons someone might have a gun like that! I kept thinking there’s maybe more going on! That maybe I’m just misreading the whole situation! Maybe he’s a normal, friendly guy that I shouldn’t freak out with my weird alien self! I wasted so much time when I should’ve just kicked his butt the second he tried to get Joe in that car!”

“Or,” Tom said slowly, raising his eyebrows at the road, “maybe you could’ve shown yourself at any point in that whole story, and even if he didn’t shoot you then, he would have freaked out, driven away, and told everyone about the little blue alien in Green Hills. And then the government would’ve had to have come back and search for you again. And probably the media would’ve shown up this time, because an E.M.P. is one thing, but aliens are another. Maybe that could’ve happened.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But at least then Joe wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt.”

“Only if he just turned and ran. Who’s to say he wouldn’t’ve shot you both with the element of surprise?” he asked. “We don’t know what that guy could have done. To you or Joey – uh, Joe. If things had been different, they might have been different. Better, worse, we don’t know.” He glanced at Sonic just long enough to make sure their eyes met. “We _don’t_ know. All we actually know is that you saved Joe’s life, and no one knows about you who didn’t already, except one guy that’s currently an unconscious attempted-murderer. If and when he wakes up, it’s pretty clear that the government are going to discredit him, and probably do their best to keep him locked up. That’s a good ending. You don’t need to apologise for it.”

Sonic hesitated, then sighed and turned forward again.

He still wished he’d done something sooner.

* * *

Joe was a little more put-together in the daylight, but it was kind of hard to find anything to talk about. They both still felt like they’d screwed up. Sonic tried to complain about how he was grounded for breaking a curfew he hadn’t even known about, but Joe said he was probably missing the point. After all, he was essentially grounded because his parents were scared – he figured it would be the same thing for Sonic.

Which was dumb. Sonic wasn’t like Joe. It didn’t make any sense for anyone to be scared for him. He’d been the one to use super powers against a human. And even if he hadn’t, he’d gone up against Robotnik! No one tried to ground him back then!

But more importantly, Joe hadn’t told his parents that Sonic had been the one to wake him up last night, so they didn’t tell Tom he’d snuck out. So Tom still didn’t find out and he was safe until dinner, when Maddie gave him a long, strange look and suggested they all try sleeping in their own beds tonight.

“I dunno,” Tom smirked at Sonic. “I still don’t trust the prisoner to stay put.”

“We can’t spend the next month sleeping on the couch,” she argued. “It’s putting a crick in my neck on the nights I take it, and I miss you on the nights I don’t.”

He turned his head, eyebrows rising, and Sonic made a face at where Tom’s mind had apparently gone, but Maddie rolled her eyes at the pair of them.

“Oh, stop it. You know what I mean.”

He hesitated, glancing at Sonic, then shrugged. “Okay. But if you sneak out and hurt yourself, I’m reserving the right to say so many ‘I told you so’s. To both of you. I will _crow_ when I’m proven right.”

“Stop it. Sonic knows what he needs to do,” she said, and Sonic met her gaze as she added, “Isn’t that right?”

He frowned, not exactly sure what she meant.

Still, it was what he needed. He went up to his cave and sat at the hatch, listening to the soft murmurs of Tom and Maddie talking as they got ready for bed. It took a while—longer than normal—for them to quiet down, and Sonic briefly debated just going out the window. But the ache in his leg and side told him he would be better off just waiting instead of trying to run down a wall.

But when he crept down and peeked into the bedroom it was to see both humans sleeping quietly, Tom’s arm over Maddie’s side and her hand intertwined with his.

They looked so peaceful. Calm.

They looked like home.

Sonic’s hand curled against the doorframe, his brow furrowing at the hot mess of emotions curling in his gut. They were just trying to protect him. He _knew_ that. And he was grateful. He was. But…

“This is something I have to do,” he murmured as he clambered out Ozzy’s door.

Something he had to do, maybe, but by the time he got to the hospital, he was very much aware it hadn’t exactly been the smart thing to do. His whole right side was throbbing, from his shoulder to his ankle. And as he hid in the bushes and stared at all the people wandering around despite the late hour, he knew it wasn’t going to get any easier.

“What are you doing?” he hissed to himself. “You don’t know where he is. There’s like a bazillion rooms in this place and no way you’re going to be able to check the ones higher up!”

“I can scale these walls no problem!” he insisted, even he inched backward, out of the bushes and into the garden bed.

“Yeah, but you won’t be able to stay up there long enough to check the windows. It’s called momentum, Sonic. Use your head!”

“Well, what else am I gonna do?” he shot back. “Maddie’s right, you’re not okay to be running up and down those walls a bazillion times. You’re gonna mess something up and she and Donut Lord are gonna _freak out_.”

He shook his head, backing up against the closest wall. His hand fell to his side, wincing when even that slight pressure reminded him of all the bruises his fur was still hiding. Like most of the bigger public services, the hospital was in Hill Top, so running here had been a fair hike compared to the absolute _nowhere_ he’d been able to go all week. He wasn’t even looking forward to the run back, let alone crazy stunts like wall running.

“You’re gonna have to go inside,” he told himself, only to immediately shake his head again, hand rising to point out what a dumb plan that was. “There are a million people in there, and you’ve seen hospitals on TV! They’re like, designed to be all huge and empty; there’s not gonna be anywhere to hide!”

“So I’ll just run really fast. No one’ll see me.”

“Until you find the room! Then what’re you gonna do? What if there’s a cop there? How are you supposed to get inside, genius? They’re gonna notice a blue wind outta nowhere! Ughhh…”

He buried his head in his hands and sank down the wall, curling his knees up to his chest. “What are you even doing? What are you gonna do when you get in there? Why did you even come here?”

And with that, he stopped, and then let out a soft breath.

“Why?” he murmured, and pulled his legs in tighter, curling his arms up too until he was nearly shifting into ball form.

He didn’t know anymore.

* * *

The porch light was on when he got home.

Maddie and Tom were sitting on the steps, blankets around their shoulders and warm drinks in their hands, though Tom set both aside when he saw Sonic walking up the drive. He stood and walked down, though he stopped to kneel at the edge of the light, just waiting.

Sonic hesitated a few yards back, not really sure what them being there meant.

“It’s okay,” Tom said, extending a hand. “You’re not in trouble. Well. No more than you were yesterday.”

He didn’t know what the feeling was that rushed through him was, but it left him even more tired than before. The hand reaching out to him seemed to make his leg hurt even worse. The gentle looks on their faces were exhausting. Sonic let his shoulders slump and limped the few steps to stand in front of him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Tom echoed, his hand dropping back to his knee. “Late night stroll?”

He lowered his gaze to the driveway, shaking his head. “It was a dumb idea. Turns out I’m kinda full of ’em.”

Tom quietly nodded, and then pushed himself to his feet before turning back toward the house. “C’mon. I’ll make you some cocoa. You okay with the stairs on that leg?”

It didn’t matter that Sonic was, because as soon as he was in reaching distance Maddie leaned down to grab his hand, half-pulling and half-lifting him up to sit beside her. She dumped Tom’s abandoned blanket over his head and wrapped an arm around him before he could even finish reacting.

“Hey!”

“Quiet now,” she said, leaning over him. “You okay?”

He blinked, then sighed and pulled the blanket back just enough that he could see the dark garden. Despite his promise of cocoa, Tom had stopped on the bottom step and was watching for his reaction. Somehow, that just made everything hurt even more.

She wasn’t asking about his leg. He pretended she was anyway. “I’m fine. You were right, though. I should’ve taken it more slow.”

“I’ll have a look later,” she promised. “Did you do what you needed to?”

He huffed. “No.”

He didn’t even know what he’d wanted to do anymore. What had he been planning? It had seemed so important.

“I… I thought I…” He tightened his fists in the blanket, the pressure of it on his ears somehow comforting. “I thought that if I saw what I’d done… if I could look that guy in the face…”

Would he feel bad? Would he regret it?

Would he wish he’d done worse?

He’d tried to kill one of Sonic’s best friends. He’d had a gun and he’d shot Sonic – granted, it was mostly out of surprise and then probably because he was helping Joe run, but… he’d still done it.

“I should… be… angry,” he realised. “At him. I should… or I… I should feel bad about it. It shouldn’t… it shouldn’t just be…”

Tom slowly crouched down, elbows on his knees, to look up at him. Sonic avoided his gaze, hating that he was so grateful for it and the weight of Maddie’s arm on his quills. They were such… _warm_ feelings. Tom and Maddie were so warm. He loved them so much. How could he love them so much when he couldn’t feel anything about…

“Joe’s not okay,” he explained, trying to understand even as he spoke the words. “I didn’t realise. I didn’t think. But he’s not. He might never be okay again. I hate that. Why is… why is that the only thing that I…?”

Tom glanced up at Maddie before coming back to him, head slightly tilted. “What do you mean, bud?”

“These last few days,” he said haltingly. “I’ve been… I’ve been getting mad at you guys. For… for locking me up, and… controlling me.”

“Sonic –”

“No,” he said, cutting off the point because it didn’t _matter_. That was the point. “It’s so _stupid_. Joe’s… Joe got so hurt, and he might never be okay again, but here I am gettin’ mad about you guys just… trying to protect me,” he said. Man, he hated himself. “When I think about… when I think back to that night, I just… I don’t… _feel_ anything. It’s just… it just happened. Joe’s never gonna be okay again, but I don’t even care about it. It’s just the thing that happened to make you guys lock me up, so it feels like… I’m just annoyed that it happened. Joe’s so hurt but for me, it’s just… annoying. That’s… that’s messed up, right?”

Tom stared for a couple of seconds, his fist absently knocking against his open palm as his jaw silently worked around a few different things he never said. He looked up at Maddie, but although Sonic couldn’t see her, he could guess she probably looked just as speechless.

And seriously, what were they supposed to say? He was crazy. They all knew it. He’d gone completely nuts after ten years alone.

It just sucked every time he realised just how crazy he’d gone. It sucked knowing he didn’t feel things right. This whole thing sucked.

“I… guess it’s… Compared to what we went through when we all met,” Maddie tried, “I guess I can see how it… probably…”

“You know,” Tom added, clapping his hands together and then shaking them. “You… hm.”

Maybe this was it. Maybe this would be the thing that was too much. The thing that made him too weird, too alien. Maybe they wouldn’t want to live with someone who could face killer psychos like Robotnik and Rob and not care about it. They’d send him back to his cave at best. Maybe they’d go find that old guy that gave them the gift card. He hadn’t seemed upset about everything with Robotnik either.

Because all that had been bad, too. People had been hurt. A lot of people in San Francisco had been really hurt.

Just like Joe.

Maybe they’d all never be okay either.

Sonic should have been more careful. Why wasn’t he ever careful? Why didn’t he ever think about the consequences?

Why wasn’t he able to be upset about the whole thing happening? He was doing it again, not even caring that he’d stranded one guy on a mushroom planet, and put another guy in the hospital, and who knew if he’d wake up, and…

And he didn’t care. Not about what happened. Not about the danger he’d been in. Not about the horrible things he’d done.

He only cared about Joe. And Tom, and Maddie, and all those people in San Francisco that he hadn’t even thought about at the time…

He was so messed up.

“You know what?” Maddie said finally, “That’s okay. It’s okay, Sonic.”

“How is it okay?” he demanded, trying to twist his head to see her past the blanket and her arm.

“Because… you’ve got us,” she said awkwardly, inclining her head and looking off to the side for a moment before she seemed to come to a decision and leaned over to help meet his gaze. “You’ve got us to worry about it. You’re going to be reckless and heroic and… all that stuff… and we’re going to worry about it. We’re going to worry about you, and get mad, and ground you, and you’re going to hate that, and that’s just how it’s going to be.”

“What?”

“That’s what family does,” she said. “Even when that family includes alien hedgehogs with super powers. We worry about each other. Sometimes, we get on each other’s nerves. We do things that make each other angry, or worried, or upset… but we care about each other. Maybe more than we care about ourselves.”

He frowned. “But… but it’s not just – I hurt that guy. I – I should –”

“Let me be the judge on that one,” Tom interjected firmly, and when Sonic looked at him, he was meeting Maddie’s gaze like they were having a second, silent conversation. “Yeah. Yeah, look, I don’t want you going up against bad guys on the regular, but… trust me on this one. I’ll be the first one to tell you when you’re getting out of line. That guy wasn’t it.”

“Really, Sonic,” Maddie added, and her arm tightened around him. “I know this is all kind of scary. I don’t think there’s a right way to deal with this, but… me and Tom… we’re just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “That’s pretty much all that matters about this to us. That you’re okay.”

He hesitated, another strange, warm feeling filling him up from the centre of his chest. It was so strong, and so powerful… he could feel it rippling through every part of him.

They still cared.

They still wanted him around.

Even with how screwed up and hard and inhuman he was… He huffed out a laugh and let himself fall into Maddie’s side. She leaned further into him in return, her hand rising to gently rub the blanket over his ears, and five minutes ago he never could have believed how wonderful he could feel in this moment.

He ran the whole conversation back through his head, relishing every word they’d said, but there was one he kept coming back to. He grinned and craned his neck to try and look up without moving away from her side. “Did you call us family? I’m really part of your family?”

She stared at him, then looked incredulously up at Tom, who huffed out his own laugh and shoved himself up the stairs to sit on his other side, joining the sideways hug.

“Of course you are, y’little blue devil. Nice of you to notice.”

Sonic laughed and revelled in the heavy weight on both sides of his head, warm and secure and caring. “Hey, I’m fast on my feet, not my head,” he joked, and then took a deep breath. They really wanted him. “Thanks, you guys. Thank you. So much.”

“Oh, don’t thank me just yet,” he said. “You’re still grounded, remember. Oh, and by the way, 'I told you so'!”

“And that was before you snuck out,” Maddie added, ignoring the second part. “ _Twice_. And probably hurt yourself some more. If you’ve reopened that leg wound I am going to _erupt_.”

But with their arms around him, and knowing it was just because they cared… Sonic closed his eyes and rocked sideways, the best he could do to hug them both back.

It was an argument he was more than willing to keep having.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something different for three of the 15 Tables. The genres in question are Horror/Thriller, Hurt/Comfort, and Mystery, so they all kind of worked together into one DRAMA. No idea if it's going to work, but that's the point of my 48, so!
> 
> Hope it wasn't terrible.


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